Re: Vintage Computer Society

["Sean Fahey" <a2fan@hotmail.com>]

> I'll let the hardware guys respond to that.  However, on the VCF quoted
> above.  I was thinking MUCH more locally oriented, like our old Apple2
> user groups with things to do every month.  The kind of user groups
> where the participants could become friends and have fun together.
>
> Charles

I am one of those hardware guys - back then I was <literally> a kid, now I'm
an IT professional with <ack!> almost 30 years experience with computers.
Ooof, suddenly I feel older than I did 5 minutes ago...

Charles - where are you located? I know of at least 10 Apple II user groups
still in existence. Maybe you live near one. Or move... haha just kidding.

Back in the day, when I lived in Chicago - the first computer user group I
went to had users representing several different platforms. Altairs, PDP,
IBM'ers (mini and mainframe) Sol, Apple, CBM... about 100 people from the
whole Chicagoland area showed up on a regular basis and just yakked about
computing in general. People talked about solving equations, how computers
were evolving, artificial intelligence and their impact on society. Thats
when we all got to meet that Bill Gates guy - before he was rich and famous
and still selling his BASIC product in boxes that were barely above zip-lock
baggie quality, and manuals that were copied off carbons.

Eventually, that group got a lot bigger, outgrew the place where we met, and
eventually broke into SIGS. We out grew a few other places, then the SIGS
started meeting on different nights so as not to over extend the facilities.

By 1980 or so, the original club had broken off into several seperate
unafilliated user groups, some of which had regional affiliations (some
not) - Chicago was just simply too big. For example, there was once a
greater Chicagoland Apple II Users Group (at Lake County aka CLC) - then
there was one in Libertyville/Mundelein, another in Aurora, Schaumburg, Lake
Forest... a few others. We tried to make it to a couple of them a month.

My point, is that the vintage crowd is coming full circle. We all used to
meet together, then went our seperate ways as we specialized and platforms
grew in popularity.... now, we're consolidating again.